Trailer Breakdown for “Castlevania” Netflix Teaser

We’re very excited about Netflix’s new Castlevania series. The talent and story behind sound great, but we’re particularly taken with the debut teaser trailer that just dropped. Let’s take a step-by-step look at what details we can gleam their new teaser trailer.

If you haven’t caught up with the news lately, you may have missed this debut teaser trailer for Netflix’s new original animated show based on iconic video game series Castlevania:

Let’s break this wonderful trailer down to see what we can tell about the animation style and potential story.

The show will be loosely based on the NES prequel Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. The show’s official synopsis is as follows:

“The last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan, trying to save Eastern Europe from extinction at the hand of Vlad Dracula Tepe himself.”

This project is believed to have evolved from a previous attempt by producer Adi Shankar and writer Warren Ellis to adapt Castlevania III into an animated feature. As we walk through this trailer, we’ll see clear connections to this show and the story of the CVIII.

To open the trailer, we have this brief live action segment featuring someone inserting a custom homebrew cartridge into an NES. Interesting to note is that this unique red cartridge the player blows into and starts playing actually has some of the show’s official key art on it, which replicates the original 1987 NES box art with the updated art style, giving us our first good look at Count Dracula himself:

Once this cartridge is started up, it has an 8-bit Netflix navigation interface! The player scrolls past other shows including House of Cards and Orange Is the New Black to select the Castlevania option. Once selected, the trailer really begins.

The first shot shows Dracula’s iconic castle, which very closely resembles versions seen throughout the series history. Those pictured below are from the original NES game, as well as one of the DS sequels Portrait of Ruin:

An opening narration begins, saying that there is a darkness upon the land.

We see fields of impaled bodies, surely victims of Dracula’s reign of terror. The impaling of enemies in this way is a trademark of Dracula, as well as that of Vlad Tepes (Bram Stoker’s real-life inspiration for the Dracula character).

We see a new hope approach the iconic castle, as we get our first glimpse at our central hero.

This man is surely the “last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan” referenced in the show’s synopsis. It’s presumed to be Trevor Belmont, who was the main hero of CVIII, and was the first Belmont family member to defeat Dracula.

We also see fire and biblical destruction being inflicted upon this land, most likely an area of Eastern Europe where Dracula resides and begins his campaign against humanity. This seems to set the stage for a plot that indeed takes much inspiration from CVIII, as does the character reveals we see next:

This is surely Alucard and Sypha Belnades, alternate playable characters we first saw in CVIII. Alucard is the son of Dracula, occasionally a playable protagonist (most famously in PlayStation classic Symphony of the Night) and always fighting against his father for the fate of humanity. Sypha Belnades is a witch/sorceress who casts elemental spells in the fight against Dracula in CVIII.

Speaking of Symphony of the Night, this shot of Alucard rising from rest in a coffin reminds me of the save points you’d recover from in that game:

Next we get more glimpses of Belmont, as well as some of the mature tone and violence producer Adi Shankar has advocated for this show.

It’s unknown where we’ll find Belmont at the beginning of the series, but it appears as if he’ll have to find his own path a bit before going after Dracula at his home castle.

It seems that Dracula may have his own dramatic arc in this show. He’s seen summoning some power in this shot, presumably in his castle. He may be alone in this scene, which makes me wonder if the story will be presented as much from his point of view as it is from Belmont and company’s. If that’s the case, we could get insight into Dracula’s past, including his love for Lisa, Alucard’s mother.

Lisa has been mentioned in some Castlevania lore, as well as appearing as an illusion in Symphony of the Night to son Alucard. Lisa also was stated to have been an important part of the previous animated Castlevania project Ellis and Shankar were both involved with. So if this project really evolved from that one, it’s likely that we’ll get a buildup of both Dracula and Belmont’s stories before they converge.

I’d like to quickly note that, on the shot pictured above, I thought we were seeing our first glimpse of Grant DaNasty, the last of the four playable characters from CVIII. Grant is a former pirate and central player in that particular game, but upon closer inspection, I believe this is another shot of the previously-shown Belmont throwing out knives. It’d be nice to have Grant be a part of this series, but if anyone from CVIII would need to get cut, I believe it’d have to be Mr. DaNasty.

We then get one last look at our hero entering Dracula’s castle, along with a narration prophesying that he is the man that will kill Dracula. The voice that says this has a sound and tenor not unlike versions of Alucard we’ve heard in certain games, so this may be some dialogue between our heroes that accompany Belmont’s journey to his final destiny of confronting Dracula.

Overall, this is a surprising, exciting and compelling look at a show which could very well redefine how video games can be translated into TV/movies. If this project succeeds and becomes popular, we could see other video game properties receive mature Netflix treatment. I’m hopeful for a Metal Gear Solidseries in this vein, but then again, it’s hard to expect much from Konami these days…

Stay tuned to more updates on this new Castlevania series from The Geekiverse!

Are you a fan of Castlevania? Are you excited by the look of this new series? Let us know in the comments!

Seth Zielinski is a fan of old Konami video games as well as old Universal horror. Also his birthday falls on the same day as the North American release of the first Castlevania on NES. For real.

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